The Last Day
by Kadabi
Summary: "That's the lesson of life, isn't it? It gives us one person who both shows us that true love exists and that fairy tales don't." Sess x Kag. Character deaths


Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Sess x Kag

"That's the lesson of life, isn't it? It gives us one person who both shows us that true love exists and that fairy tales don't."

It was The Last Day.

Kagome's Last Day.

It was time for her to go home; the well had been calling to her for days now.

Or, rather, it was supposed to have been.

The dust had settled, and the battle had been won – but not the way she, they, had envisioned. They were untouchable, almost invincible, for so long that she could now say they had gotten complacent, almost arrogant in the way they viewed the last fight.

No matter what Naraku threw at them, they had found a way to climb, hurl, barrel past it. They were the heroes of their story, destined to win, Kagome had been Chosen to fall down that well and re-write history.

How could she – they – lose? Heroes didn't lose, Kagome grew up on those stories and she knew the endings. Any child knew, it was the universal rule – fairy tales didn't lie.

Heroes didn't lose.

But Kagome wasn't a child.

And they didn't, technically, lose. They had defeated Naraku, they had found all the shards of the Shikon, and no remaining incarnates existed. If this ever made the history books, they'd sing ballads about their heroism while swigging alcohol and sitting around hearths, there would be intricate paintings on parchment adorning museum walls showing blood stained battlefields with decapitated demons.

It didn't matter how many saw it through to the end as long as they achieved their goal – those that died would forever be martyrs, immortal in their own way.

Kagome had become a legend, an immortal, at twenty-one. She would never die, and it broke her heart in a way she didn't have words for.

When the dust had settled, those childish delusions were whisked away.

In stories, no one died so suddenly that you didn't get last words, or at least a heart wrenching goodbye. Everyone had closure, and the "happily ever after" would follow soon as the hero and their one true love walked hand in hand into the sunset.

Kagome's End didn't involve closure, when she loosed her last arrow – The Last Arrow – she lost consciousness. She went from Naraku's claws around her throat to picking herself up off the blood soaked ground, clothing stained and sticking to skin. She could feel the shredded skin of her throat crack open when she stood, new blood staining the collar.

There were no bodies, just a crater littered with remnants of so many demons that Kagome could only assume it was where Miroku had lost control of his curse.

All she had were assumptions.

The Shikon hung like a thousand pound weight around her throat, the constant warmth between her breasts reminding her of failed responsibilities and broken promises.

The lip of the Bone Eater's well loomed ominously before her, waiting to swallow her whole – she tipped precariously forward before dropping back to the grass with a thud.

The jewel was purified during the two weeks she had to spend at Kaede's healing, she had lost enough blood that it took convincing she wasn't the undead before the village healers would touch her. She had broken almost all of her ribs, and suffered a pretty significant (in her opinion) concussion. She was delirious with fever for almost a week and when she managed to stand on her own she saw that Kaede had started preparations for a funeral. The villagers still treated her as though she was bewitched.

There was no sign of Inuyasha in that time, no whispers, no rumors, nothing. The villagers had tried to scour the battlefield for remains but scavenger demons had claimed it as their own, and it was near impossible for them to get close enough without risking their own lives. She couldn't fault them for calling it off.

She'd never come across a demon in the present. She didn't have any delusions of grandeur that she'd hop into the well and pop out to Inuyasha waiting for her. Her delusions had been reserved for the past.

She was supposed to have stayed with Inuyasha. They had plans. Even if it wasn't the kind of plans she had dreamed of as a child, they were still hers. This was her fairy tale. She was one of the heroes.

Where was her happy ending?

***  
A week had passed without any answers, Koga had checked in once or twice before he moved his pack.

It was time for her to go home. She had put it off long enough. She had dragged her feet thinking something would change, that some miracle would happen and Inuyasha would appear out of the mist. She no longer had any reason to stay behind, and she couldn't deny that anymore. No one was coming for her.

Inuyasha. Sango. Miroku.

"Leaving?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat, she liked to think of herself as strong – but not strong enough to turn around and look into those eyes. She could feel the tiny cracks in her façade began to quiver at the thought, and it took all she had to clench her jaw to quiet the rising sob.

"Your ward?"

She had to swallow twice before she could speak, "He's s-staying – he's staying with Kaede. There's nothing for him where I'm going." Her voice wavered, and she knew she hadn't conveyed her conviction in the decision to leave Shippo behind.

Sesshomaru had saved her once or twice – after Kikyo's death it was like Inuyasha had forgotten there were other lives that still relied upon him. Or that his mattered at all. He had become so reckless, and Kagome was marked with more than one scar from his foolish decisions near the end.

There was never enough time to grieve, there was only time to pack up, cover your tracks, and move on. Burying bodies was a luxury; there was no time for tears or words of prayer. It had chipped away at them each in its own heartbreaking way. Kikyo's death had been the tipping point for all of them.

"Where – exactly – do you think you are going to?"

She smiled, her first real smile, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Sesshomaru had invited her – not in so many words – to stay with him, he would be her protector so long as she would be Rin's. In his mind she had nowhere to go, no one to turn to and he owed Inuyasha. It was all he could do for her. She could provide Rin the human aspect she was lacking in her life of demons. He knew nothing of the future, of time travel or magical wells that held her entire life on the other side.

How could she? As little as she knew of the Lord of the West, she harbored no doubt that he'd think she had lost what little of her mind that remained if she tried to explain the significance of the Bone Eater's Well.

He had thought just as much when she turned down his offer, or rather he thought she was going to kill herself and had panicked in the most composed way she had ever witnessed. It took her two days to convince him she wasn't going to harm herself so that he would let her return to Kaede's village.

She could feel him behind her, feel his heat, the uncertainty that she herself was living with every day. If she leaned slightly back, she would touch his chest. The air was thick with words unsaid, so many unanswered questions, but Sesshomaru wasn't the kind to talk feelings or stall for time.

It was now or never.

When it came down to it, Kagome was a coward. The well had loomed before the two of them, and in the face of uncertainty she had flinched away. She wasn't ready to face the other side; they would be waiting for her. She couldn't face the questions she knew they'd have; she wasn't quite ready to make it that real just yet.

She spent so much energy not thinking about it, about them, that it was like she had created a whole new world where it never happened. She knew it wasn't healthy, but she wasn't ready to deal with it in any other way. Her heart hurt, and she was afraid if she prodded the fragile reality she had built that it would burst, and she'd lose herself.

There was nothing for her in this time anymore, but there wasn't exactly anything that was waiting for her in the present either. She was stuck between rushing forward and throwing herself backward.

 _This must be how purgatory feels._

Another guilt ridden week of, "Tomorrow, I'll go tomorrow," had slipped by while Kagome found another way to entertain her thoughts.

The villagers were terrified of Sesshomaru, with no judgment from Kagome, the Lord of the West – thanks to Rin – had done better by humans but his bloodstained past was something humanity would not soon forgive or forget. Rin had begun to spend her days in the village learning what Kagome and Kaede had to offer, and when her studies were done she spent her evenings teaching Shippo new ways to terrorize his enemies.

Which meant Sesshomaru was spending an unusual amount of time in the village as well. Kagome noticed it, and she knew Sesshomaru was hyper aware of his presence there too. Sesshomaru terrified her, no matter what shaky ground they stood on, and she was not yet willing to breach the subject with him.

To avoid the villagers reaching for pitchforks and torches Kagome had spent the last five out of seven evenings with Sesshomaru and, like a wave, it came crashing down on her all at once how lonely she was.

For the last five evenings she found herself in the same situation, seated across the hearth from Sesshomaru while stirring a pot of stew in comfortable silence. He never ate; more often than not they'd sit like they were: quietly with ceramic cups of some sort of drink in their hands.

The last six years of her life she had spent most of her nights around a fire with those she loved, belly full of horrible food but the woods echoed with their laughter, and she had never been happier. Most nights she would curl next to Sango, Shippo tucked safely under an arm and wake up to the sounds of pots and pans clanging while Miroku made breakfast and Inuyasha barked orders.

The silence was killing her. The memories were suffocating in the quiet of her hut and the longer she stayed the louder the well's cries became. She spent her nights alone now, and her mornings were so focused on forgetting that she didn't feel much of anything anymore.

Sesshomaru's presence, as distant as it was, awoke an ache for a loss in her that she hadn't allowed herself to feel.

"Miko."

While lost in thought she had gripped the up so tightly that a piece of the bottom had splintered off, cutting into her palm. While the injury was minor she could feel Sesshomaru's disapproving frown without having to look up.

It still felt too real to look into those eyes.

She scoffed lightly, and set the cup aside reaching for a cloth to staunch the flow of blood. However, Sesshomaru was a moment faster and caught her slick hand with his clawed one, using the end of his hakama to put pressure on the cut.

She had never been so close to Sesshomaru, he frightened her. They had been tentative allies for almost two years now, enemies for much longer than that, and she always harbored a healthy fear of the daiyoukai. She credited most of her survival in this era to that fear, however as he knelt before her now she shivered for an entirely different reason.

His hand was uncomfortably warm, and she had to check the urge to slip her hand out of his grasp. She was hyper aware of her face heating, cheeks reddening, the longer Sesshomaru held onto her.

She hadn't looked at him, really looked at him, since they started spending their evenings together. When they spoke she would shield her eyes like she was staring into the sun, watch the villagers toil away in the fields, or pick at her nails. Anything to keep her from having to look him in the face.

"Miko."

Kagome was a pro at making mistakes by this point in her life, mistakes in the future, mistakes in the past, mistakes that could kill her, literally and figuratively, happened to be her forte.

She knew she shouldn't have, but she did anyway, and when she raised her eyes to catch his she felt like she was drowning, spots danced before her eyes. That was her first mistake.

She couldn't remember what led her to believe that Sesshomaru's eyes were anything like Inuyasha's. There was no fire or uncertainty in the daiyoukai's eyes that plagued his half-brother. She imagined hers looked much like his right now – full of desperation and loss. Naraku had defined their existence for so long – and in the blink of an eye everything was over, they were left grasping at straws to make sense of the end, and where to begin again.

That was her second mistake.

Her third, and fatal, mistake was around the moment she reached for him and she met with no resistance. She wasn't bold, but she was desperate and when she slid her hands into his hair the content growl that slipped past his lips gave her the push she needed. She dropped to the floor, and hungrily pressed her lips to his.

His lips were rougher than she imagined, but she was clumsy and inexperienced next to his slow skill, and when she tried to pull away Sesshomaru gave a light tug to her arm that sent her sprawling forward. He swallowed her strangled gasp, claws slipping into her impossibly tangled raven strands to hold her in place.

Sesshomaru cradled her face with one hand, while the other wrapped around her waist to pull her flush against him. He kissed her with an intensity that frightened her, tongue delving past her lips, while her hands slipped down past his neck to rest against his chest.

Her first kiss. Inuyasha was supposed to have been her first kiss; after all he was her first love. But, if the last six years taught her anything it was the fairy tale love didn't always mean forever love

In that moment she surrendered, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself as closely to him as she could. She met his desperation with her own, his youkai began to spike and press against her demanding surrender, and when his chest began to rumble with the beginnings of a snarl she relented and let him press her into the floor.

It was The Last Day.

The call of the Bone Eater's Well had gotten too loud to ignore, the pull dragging her though the forest, forcing her to trip over her own feet, to throw her onto the lip of the well bloody and bruised.

The Shikon felt like it was on fire, her chest was scorching and she couldn't catch her breath. She could feel the magic swirling in the darkness, and she didn't think she had ever been so afraid. No light penetrated the darkness below, and the Shikon was dragging her down.

The wood of the well splintered beneath her hands as she tried to avoid tipping over – she hadn't even said her goodbyes. She tried to dig her feet into the mud, but the Shikon sent her knees careening into the side of the well. She bit back an anguished cry. Shippo. Rin. Kaede. And Sesshomaru. They wouldn't know where she had gone, all of her things were still in the hut. It would be like she vanished without a second thought to those left behind.

Just like Inuyasha.

How could she do that to them?

Blood slipped down her arms as wood chips splintered in her palms.

"Ka –"

She was falling.

She could feel blood pool in the hollow of her throat where the strap that held the Shikon had split her skin open as it threw her over the lip of the well. The light wasn't comforting this time, it was full of broken memories and it felt like she was falling into forever.

When she pushed herself up off the sandy bottom of the well she was disoriented, and had to work to remember her name. Her head was throbbing and her vision was double, but the ladder hung in its usual place and she could hear the bustle of the present.

She was home.

The well was dead.

"Kagome."

Squinting, she covered her eyes with her hand and, it was like she as looking into the sun, and tilted her head back to glance at the top of the well, "Sesshomaru…"

A/N:

It has been a long, looong while since I've written any fanfiction and I feel like this might have been more rambling than making any sense. I'm toying with making this into a two or three shot to potentially explain a little more regarding her relationship with Sesshomaru, lack of relationship with Inuyasha, and "true love" bit. But for now, I am content.

Hope you enjoyed!


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